Old Parsonage, Banbury Road
Allow us some end-of-term indulgence. Since our parents pick us up next week (sorry to those who have exams. Neither mummy nor daddy can save you from that particular brand of doom) can there be a better way to usher in the summer than a meal at one of Oxford’s finest restaurants?
The answer comes not so resoundingly in the negative as I would have hoped. The Old Parsonage is a wisteria-clad 17th Century hotel. We sat inside, late into the evening where everything was all thin-blown tumblers and half-molten grey candles, and more portraits than Christchurch’s Harry Potter hall. One whole wall is mirrored, to give the impression of more portraits. I don’t know who any of them was, and I doubt any diner has ever cared.
The food was beyond average. But not stunning. Perhaps I expected too much. My companion – “that Cherwell girl” – chose well: her chilled beetroot and buttermilk soup had a sweet creaminess and didn’t fall into the trap of tasting like a portion of Covent Garden poured straight from carton to bowl. It was quite sexy. Her main, too, a Halibut dish, was simply executed, perfectly cooked, with flirtatious notes of lemon and saltiness swimming out of the decently-sized dish. My veal, on the other hand, was very confused, which made me very confused. Veal: yes. Spinach: yes. Egg: okay, I’ll accept. Anchovy: where are we going with this? Capers: negligible. Sauce: indiscriminate. The meat was tougher than a baby animal should be, but the delicate flavour did well to plant its little flag upon my taste-buds. Puddings were yummy, though. Cherwell girl’s orange creme-brulée was not firm enough, but the flavours were there. I chose to cleanse my palate with the chocolate-sorbet, which seems akin to washing one’s car with Bollinger. Excessive, frivolous, beautiful. If the ‘rents are footing the bill, you could do far worse.
